You could expect that from their opinion shows that take of their prime time and evening coverage. There is no balance there and you shouldn’t expect it; they’re opinion shows. So when you hear Bill O’Reilly say that he thinks oil speculators should be jailed, and all of our oil reserves nationalized and controlled by the national government, you can take that for what it is and tune out. When Eric Bolling pulls out his pocket constitution from CATO and says that he is all for more cameras on the streets, you can shake your head and wonder if he has ever read it. Opinion shows are just what they are advertised as – opinion shows.

But news reporting used to be just “news” – balanced, informative reporting. No longer.

During the founding of the nation there was much debate over whether or not states wanted to establish a central government. Newspapers ran a number of editorial pieces called the Federalist Papers. These were written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, and were 100 percent pro central government pieces. Also published were their rebuttals, collectively known today (not as well as they should be) as the anti-Federalist papers. These were written in part by Richard Henry Lee, George Clinton and others. These papers sought to expose the weaknesses of the constitution and explain how tyranny could take foothold in the future if the Federalists succeeded in getting the constitution ratified. For the purposes of this blog, the important thing was that both were published and distributed. Fair and balanced, no editing or salesman like pitches rammed down your throat as you read them in the town square, or picked up your copy from the corner stand.

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Our Peace President is ready to bomb Syria in submission. They have crossed a “red line” that he told them not to, but recanted and said that the world drew the red line. So, he wants to send a couple hundred Tomahawk TLAMs in there at $1.5 million each to do – just what? We don’t know. Even as he makes his case to Congress, he does not know. To punish Assad for using chemical weapons on his people, I guess. He must be punished.

Or is it a shot across the bow?

Think back to Libya. The unconstitutional intervention at that time was to take out their air force, artillery and provide air support for the civilian rebels that were getting slaughtered. It was definitely not for regime change. But then we bombed every palace, house, tent and tree that we thought Ghaddafi was possibly hiding under. We all remember the gripping scene as they dragged him from that culvert, beating and kicking him before blowing his head off. Humanitarian missions don’t all end good you know.

Well, lets get back to the red line. Two days before this chemical attack, UN Weapons Inspectors arrived in Syria. They were there to investigate a previous chemical attack in March. The Russians and the UN say that the evidence points to the rebels being behind that attack.

Hold the phone! I thought John Kerry said that there were no questions. This is certainly enough for me to hold off a missile attack on a sovereign nation. Russia has provided the United States with other intelligence that points to the rebels. In the spirit of the reset, we have discarded that intelligence at the same time, refusing to share any of our intelligence with the Russian government. That’s right, as the Russians and Chinese send warships of their own to the area, we refuse to share intelligence that could erase the red line.

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During his first public appearance since the election, Representative and former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan spoke in Racine on Sunday to discuss the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Joining Rep. Ryan were Cato Institute’s Mike Tanner, Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, and Wisconsin State Senator Leah Vukmir.

Addressing an audience that would have liked to have seen Romney/Ryan in the White House repealing and replacing ACA this month, Rep. Ryan noted that is not happening. Ryan then went on to say the next method in line for ACA to be repealed is that “it collapses under its’ own weight”.

Representative Ryan also said ACA is an issue that determines our debt, and our economy. He went on to say ACA is the issue that ultimately determines our freedom.

Certainly, Representative Ryan doesn’t want the United States to undergo a debt collapse like Greece, nor an economic collapse such as Japan, nor a collapse caused by lack of freedom such as the Soviet Union. Logic dictates that the 51% of Americans (Rasmussen) that want ACA repealed cannot feasibly wait for a collapse. Wisconsin must join the several states that are asserting states’ rights and saying “NO” to ACA.

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It’s an old mantra, at least as old as I can remember. “We need to vote in more Republicans and get control.” You’ve heard it before. If we can only regain control then we can fix everything. But I always end up asking myself, what happened? I swallowed the bait and marched into that booth determined to change the tide on out of control entitlement programs and elected officials sending me all over the globe to police the world. The election is over, the Republicans are in charge and along comes Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, the Patriot Act and a couple trillion dollars in debt.

Most recently, a new class of Republicans ran for office in the mid-term elections, promising to be more fiscally responsible and to return to our constitutional roots. I wondered what exactly constitutional roots were. I thought that the Constitution was still law, often broken and ignored, but still law. But best of all was the proclamation that all of these “constitutional” conservatives could get behind: “We will do everything in our power to either repeal or Obamacare or defund it.”

The election was a landslide, plenty of new Republicans and a couple of old ones replaced. But what happened? Did they attempt to repeal Obamacare? Yes 30 times, but everyone knew that there was a Presidential veto that would stop that. OK, let’s look at option 2. Did more and new Republicans defund it? They control the House of Representatives, and we all know that all expenditures must originate in the House. But it didn’t get defunded; something else happened – a couple of debt ceiling increases. What part of the campaign pledge promised to enslave my children and grandchildren with a debt that they will never see paid off? Surely that wasn’t part of returning to our constitutional roots, was it?

Then we awaited word from the Oracles to make their pronunciation and Chief Justice John Roberts does the unimaginable. He decides to mold the Constitution to fit the legislation. Where exactly did that authority come from? Nowhere is the Supreme Court granted the power to interpret the Constitution and make it fit law. They are supposed to interpret law and determine if it fits the Constitution. Well, I never trusted men in dresses anyway, black or red.

Turkey has a fighter plane shot down by a Syrian missile defense battery. Do you think that they will respond with military force? Do you wonder if anyone in our central government said that they wished it was one of our F4 Phantoms that was fired upon?

Syria, much like Libya before it, is in a civil war. There is a large group of people tired of the oppression of their ruling government and they are killing each other.

We had a President once who thought he knew better and went to war to prevent a bunch of states from withdrawing from the union of states that they had previously sought to join as members.

No country decided who was right and who was wrong and sent troops over here to fight on a side; did they? Is it our place to decide who is right and who is wrong in Libya, or Syria?

Let us say our country arrives at a point where we find ourselves in a civil war.

Say the people of a number of states tire of the tyranny of the central government. They refuse to be threatened with indefinite detention without trial or evidence.

They refuse to live with drones able to conduct 24 hour surveillance without any warrant. No more will they submit to bodily searches by uniformed thugs before they travel or having their mail, phone calls and Internet activities monitored.

A number of states decide that they cannot realistically expect their citizens to be able to pay their state, property and sales taxes needed to maintain the state as well as pay federal taxes for the central govt. to fund programs that support the schooling, food, housing and utility assistance of those who pay no taxes.

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Hopefully people have taken some time to breathe and are now ready to calmly consider the best way forward. There are different paths laid out before us and many thoughts on how to proceed. Let’s try to figure this one out by looking at ObamaCare and what has been done thus far.

Barack Hussein Obama swept into office on a campaign of platitudes: “hope and change.” Immediately, he began his quest to implement a national healthcare program, and Congress eventually was jammed through the Affordable Care Act. The people grew restless and the Tea Party was born. Small, then large groups began organizing protests against higher taxes, out of control spending and a central government that long ago grew out of control.

As people organized, the Secretary of Homeland Security released a report warning against certain groups, calling them possible threats to U.S. security and advising law enforcement organizations should to beware of them. These groups included veterans, liberty groups and so called “right wing bloggers,” among others.

The Tea Party grew and became a force prior to the 2010 midterm elections. A couple of national groups coalesced and endorsed certain candidates, and local groups worked tirelessly organizing tax day protests and vetting local candidates.

Sounds good so far, right?

The candidates vowed a return to smaller government, responsible spending limits, and above all, to do everything in their power to rid the country of the monstrosity that was jammed through with middle of the night votes and every procedural trick in the book. Michelle Bachmann proclaimed herself a leader of the Tea Party Coalition, and in her words, led tens of thousands to D.C. to protest the passing of ObamaCare. She and others loudly promised that they would take back control of the House of Representatives and do everything in their power to stop the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. They would bring forth repeal legislation and when that failed, they would completely starve the law by defunding it.

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Missouri State Senator Jim Lembke has introduced SB 600. The act would amend chapter 544, RSMo by adding one new section relating to the service of warrants by agents of the federal government, requiring them to notify the county sheriff prior to service.

For any warrant that is issued by a court of the United States that is to be served within the boundaries of this state, the federal agent responsible for serving the warrant shall, prior to such service, notify the sheriff of the county where the warrant is to be served. Such notification shall be made in person at the office of the county sheriff and shall identify the person subject to the warrant.

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The Nebraska legislature will consider Legislative Bill 1171, titled The Nebraska Balance of Powers Act during the 2012 session.

State Senator Mark Christensen of Nebraska’s 44th District introduced the bill on Jan. 19.

The Nebraska Balance of Powers Act shall serve as notice and a demand that the federal government cease and desist any and all activities outside the scope of the federal government’s constitutionally designated powers and which diminish the proper balance of power between the state and federal government. It also calls for the formation of a committee on nullification.

The bill is intended to reclaim the powers that the Tenth Amendment guarantees and reserves to the states and the people of Nebraska, not delegated to the federal government elsewhere in the Constitution. Such guarantee makes up part of a compact between the people of the State of Nebraska and the United States as of the time that the State of Nebraska was admitted to statehood in 1867.

“The Constitution of the United States affirms that the sole and sovereign power to regulate a state’s business and affairs rests in the state legislature and has always been a compelling state concern and central to state sovereignty.”

This bill would establish a Medical Necessity Defense to marijuana, related prosecutions and forfeiture actions. Persons with debilitating medical conditions, or undergoing treatment that is also deemed by their primary care physician as debilitating, would be able to invoke this Medical Necessity Defense if this Bill were to be passed into law.

The defense provided under the bill, and the prohibition on arrest and prosecution contained in the bill, would also apply to a primary caregiver, if the primary caregiver acquires, possesses, cultivates, transfers or transports marijuana to facilitate the patients use.

There are no protections for use of marijuana deemed to be recreational. Certain provisions are laid out in the language of the Bill to prevent the defense from being invoked when people are in a corrections facility, sitting on a park bench, schools, public transportation and in the person’s place of work. There are also strong prohibitions against the operation of a motor vehicle while under the influence of marijuana.

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It seems as though Wisconsin is ready to assert its tenth amendment rights and claim state sovereignty! Dozens of states have submitted similar resolutions and they have in most cases led to more specific legislation, such as health care freedom acts that nullify Obama’s health care and most recently, Texas, Utah and Michigan currently have resolutions going through the process to declare the unconstitutional searches by the TSA unlawful and subject to criminal penalties.

Texas has also just passed a Light Bulb Freedom Act which nullifies the ridiculous ban on incandescent light bulbs. Hopefully, this resolution will lead to stronger, more specific legislation protecting the rights of the sovereign citizens of Wisconsin.